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Ayat of the Day | ||||||||||||
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Hadith of the Day: | ||||||||||||
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Miracles of the Qur’an: | ||||||||||||
The Arabic word sakan, which appears in the original of the above verse, means "repose, rest, time to withdraw to rest, time for a break." As indicated by Allah, night is the time when human beings rest. The hormone melatonin, secreted at night, prepares the body for sleep by slowing down peoples' physical movements, making them sleepy and tired, and functioning as a natural tranquillizer that eases their minds. During sleep, heartbeat and respiration rhythms slow down and blood pressure falls. In the morning, the production of the hormones stops and the body is stimulated to awaken. At the same time, sleep allows the body's muscles and tissues to repair themselves and the body to replace old or dead cells. Since energy expenditure is reduced during sleep, the body stores energy throughout the night. Several chemicals vital for the immune system and growth hormones are also secreted during sleep. In the event that people fail to get enough sleep, therefore, the immune system is immediately affected and the body becomes more susceptible to sickness. If people are unable to sleep for two nights, they will find it harder to concentrate and their error levels will rise. If they are deprived of sleep for three nights, they will begin to hallucinate and be unable to think logically. Night is as much a time for rest for other living things as it is for human beings. This situation, referred to by Allah in the verse "the night as a time of stillness," indicates a fact that cannot be observed by the naked eye: Many activities that take place during the day slow down and rest during the night. In plants, for instance, perspiration in leaves and photosynthesis begin to rise when the Sun rises. In the afternoon, the situation is reversed. In other words, photosynthesis slows down and respiration increases since perspiration is accelerated as the temperature rises. At night time, as the temperature falls, perspiration slows down and the plant rests. Most plants would die if just one night failed to take place. From that point of view, night means rest and reinvigoration for plants, just as it does for human beings. Movement at the molecular level also declines at night. The radiation emitted by the Sun during the day activates the atoms and molecules in Earth's atmosphere and causes them to achieve higher energy levels. As darkness falls, the atoms and molecules fall to lower energy levels and start to give off radiation. These facts are, in all probability, indicated in Surat al-An‘am 96 and reveal yet another of the Qur'an's countless miracles. (Allah knows best.) | ||||||||||||
Wonders of Creation: | ||||||||||||
Special Freezing System A frozen frog embodies an unusual biological structure. It shows no signs of life. Its heartbeat, breathing and blood circulation have come completely to a halt. When the ice melts, however, the same frog returns to life as if it is has woken up from sleep. Normally, a living being in the state of freezing confronts many fatal risks. The frog, however, does not face any of them. It has the main feature of producing plenty of glucose while it is in that state. Just like a diabetic, the blood sugar level of the frog reaches very high levels. It can sometimes go as high as 550 mmol/liter. (This figure is normally between 1-5 mmol/liter for frogs and 4-5 mmol/liter for human body). This extreme glucose concentration may cause serious problems in normal times. In a frozen frog, however, this extreme glucose keeps water from leaving cells and prevents shrinkage. The cell membrane of the frog is highly permeable to glucose so that glucose finds easy access to cells. The high level of glucose in the body reduces the freezing temperature causing only a very small amount of the animal's inner body liquid to turn to ice in the cold. Research has showed that glucose can feed frozen cells as well. During this period, besides being the natural fuel of the body, glucose also stops many metabolic reactions like urea synthesis and thus prevents different food sources of the cell from being exhausted. How does such a high amount of glucose in the frog's body come about all of a sudden? The answer is quite interesting: this living being is equipped with a very special system in charge of this task. As soon as ice appears on the skin, a message travels to the liver making the liver convert some of its stored glycogen into glucose. The nature of this message traveling to the liver is still unknown. Five minutes after the message is received, the sugar level in the blood steadily starts to increase. Unquestionably the animal's being equipped with a system that entirely changes its metabolism to meet all of its needs just when it is required can only be possible through the flawless plan of the All-Mighty Creator. No coincidence can generate such a perfect and complex system. | ||||||||||||
Lives of the Prophets: | ||||||||||||
Even before the first human being had been created, all the details of what each person would experience in the future, the events to be witnessed by every nation, the stages every society would go through, and the like, had all been established in the sight of Allah. Yet, people do not know any of these details that have been established, lived through, or done with in the sight of Allah. They only see and come to know them as they experience them. The future is thus unknown to us. However, Allah has also revealed that He has granted some of His servants information about the unknown in the Qur'an:
One of the items of information about the future given to Prophet Muhammad (saas) by means of the Qur'an is to be found in the early verses of Surat ar-Rum. It is revealed in these verses that the Byzantine Empire had been defeated, but would then emerge victorious a short while later. These verses were revealed in 620 A.D., some seven years after a crushing defeat inflicted on the Byzantines by the idolater Persians. The news is reported that the Byzantines will soon again be victorious. At that time, however, the Byzantines had been so seriously defeated that it looked impossible for them even to survive, let alone later emerge victorious. Not only the Persians, but also the Avars, Slavs and Lombards all constituted a grave menace to the Byzantine Empire. The Avars had come as far as the walls of Constantinople. In order to meet the expenses of his army, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius had ordered all gold and silver ornamental goods in the churches to be melted down. When that proved to be insufficient, he even started to have bronze statues torn down to make coins from. Many governors rebelled against Emperor Heraclius, and the empire was on the point of falling apart. The idolater Persians had occupied many Byzantine territories, including Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Armenia. (Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 287-299) In short, everyone expected Byzantium to disappear completely. Yet, at just that moment, the news was revealed in the verse that Byzantium would emerge victorious again within nine years. Such a victory looked so totally impossible that Arab idolaters believed that this victory, revealed in the Qur'an, could never happen. Yet, it was certainly true, just like everything else in the Qur'an. About seven years after the revelation of the first verses of Surat ar-Rum, in December 627 A.D., there was a major battle between Byzantium and the Persian Empire not far from the ruins of Nineveh. The Byzantine army defeated the Persians. A few months later, the Persians had to sign a treaty handing back to Byzantium all of its territories they had occupied. (Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 287-299) The "victory of the Romans," revealed to Prophet Muhammad (saas) by Allah in the Qur'an, had miraculously come about. Another miracle in these verses consists in the reporting of facts about a part of the world that nobody at the time could possibly identify. In verse 3 of Surat ar-Rum, it is said that the Romans had been defeated in "the lowest place on Earth." The Arabic for that is "Adna al Ard," and is translated in some texts as meaning "a land nearby." Yet, that does not accurately reflect the original meaning. The Arabic word "adna" means "the lowest," and comes from the word "deni," which means "low." "Ard" means the "earth." "Adna al Ard" therefore means the lowest place on earth. The battle between the Byzantine Empire and the Persians really did take place at the lowest point on earth. That was the basin of Lake Lut, where present-day Syria, Palestine and Jordan meet. It is also known that the area around the lake is 395 meters below sea-level, making it the lowest point on earth. As the verse reveals, the Romans were defeated at "the lowest place on earth." The important point here is that the altitude of Lake Lut has only been established by measurements taken in the modern age. Before that, it was not possible for anyone to know that the lake was the lowest point on earth. Yet the region is described as such in the Qur'an. That is one of the proofs that the Qur'an is the divine word, and that the Prophet Muhammad (saas) is the prophet of Allah. | ||||||||||||
Evolution Deceit: | ||||||||||||
One of the most important concepts that one must employ when questioning Darwinist theory in the light of scientific discoveries is without a doubt the criterion that Darwin himself employed. In The Origin of Species, Darwin put forward a number of concrete criteria suggesting how his theory might be tested and, if found wanting, disproved. Many passages in his book begin, "If my theory be true," and in these Darwin describes the discoveries his theory requires. One of the most important of these criteria concerns fossils and "transitional forms." However, these prophecies of Darwin's did not come true, and, on the contrary, the fossil record completely contradicts Darwinism. In addition to these, Darwin gave us another very important criterion by which to test his theory. This criterion is so important, Darwin wrote, that it could cause his theory to be absolutely broken down: If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. 1 We must examine Darwin's intention here very carefully. As we know, Darwinism explains the origin of life with two unconscious natural mechanisms: natural selection and random changes (in other words, mutations). According to Darwinist theory, these two mechanisms led to the emergence of the complex structure of living cells, as well as the anatomical systems of complex living things, such as eyes, ears, wings, lungs, bat sonar and millions of other complex systems. However, how is it that these systems, which possess incredibly complicated structures, can be considered the products of two unconscious natural effects? At this point, the concept Darwinism applies is that of "reducibility." It is claimed that these systems can be reduced to very basic states, and that they may have then developed by stages. Each stage gives a living thing a little more advantage, and is therefore chosen by natural selection. Then, later, there will be another small, chance development, and that too will be preferred because it affords an advantage, and the process will go on in this way. Thanks to this, according to the Darwinist claim, a species which originally possessed no eyes will come to possess perfect ones, and another species which was formerly unable to fly, will grow wings and be able to do so. This story is explained in a very convincing and reasonable manner in evolutionist sources. But when one goes into it in a bit more detail, a great error appears. The first aspect of this error is that mutations are destructive, not constructive. In other words, chance mutations that occur in living creatures do not provide them any "advantages," and, furthermore, the idea that they could do this thousands of times, one after the other, is a dream that contradicts all scientific observations. But there is yet another very important aspect to the error. Darwinist theory requires all the stages from one point to another to be individually "advantageous." In an evolutionary process from A to Z (for instance, from a wingless creature to a winged one), all the "intermediate" stages B, C, D, …V, W, X, and Y along the way have to provide advantages for the living thing in question. Since it is not possible for natural selection and mutation to consciously pick out their targets in advance, the whole theory is based on the hypothesis that living systems can be reduced to discrete traits that can be added on to the organism in small steps, each of which carries some selective advantage. That is why Darwin said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Given the primitive level of science in the nineteenth century, Darwin may have thought that living things possess a reducible structure. But twentieth century discoveries have shown that many systems and organs in living things cannot be reduced to simplicity. This fact, known as "irreducible complexity," definitively destroys Darwinism, just as Darwin himself feared. 1. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189. (emphasis added)
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Quick Grasp of Faith: | ||||||||||||
Allah commands the believers to conduct themselves according to the Qur’an’s morals and, no matter what happens or how they are treated, always to be resolute in this respect. On the other hand, unbelievers exhibit some behaviors that are completely opposed to the believers’ good morals. Upon encountering such behavior, the believers do not respond in the same way, but rather respond in a mighty and dignified manner and, by displaying their strong decisiveness, never neglect the Qur’an’s morals. They respond to corrupt words with good words, arrogance with humility, injustice with justice, and mercilessness with mercy. They never consider it necessary to adopt attitudes resembling the attitudes of those who reject belief. The Qur’an gives several examples of believers’ maintaining their dignity toward the unbelievers, as follows:
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Book Review: | ||||||||||||
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Site of the Day: | ||||||||||||
Nobody, however, knows what will happen even in the next few hours: at any time one may have an accident, be severely injured, or become disabled. Furthermore, time flies in the countdown to one's own death. Every day brings that predestined day closer. Death surely eradicates all ambitions, greed and desires for this world. Under the soil, neither possessions nor status prevail. Every possession with which we are being stingy, including the body, will also vanish and decay in the earth. Whether one is poor or wealthy, beautiful or ugly, one will be wrapped in a simple shroud one day. We believe that The Truth of the Life of this World offers an explanation regarding the real nature of human life. It is a short and deceptive life in which worldly desires seem fascinating and full of promise, but the truth is otherwise. This site will enable you to perceive your life and all of its realities, and help you reconsider your goals in life, if you want to. Allah enjoins on believers to warn others about these facts, and calls upon them to live only to fulfil His will, as He says in the following verse:
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